Sleep, Sparrow, Sleep

By Grant J Venables

Watching my ma crumple into the absurd vortex that is dementia, meant I spent a lot of time sitting by her bed as she-often drug induced--dreamt and jolted in and out of consciousness. As an expat Canadian, I was only able to see my old girl during the December and June breaks from the school where I work. So I was weighted by a strange guilt (of course beyond my control) and I was also afforded these intense six-month snapshots of Ma as she slid further and further towards her painful death. Always trying to make sense out of our absurd existence, Ma gave me much to think about. Existentialism, Absurdity, Euthanasia--words Ma would never have used while fully functioning, were words she brought to life through her lingering death. This small book is my attempt to honor what was her death and to make some sense of her disease.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Grant J Venables
• Release date: Mar 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310444517

Grant J Venables

I am a Canadian who lives and writes in Southeast Asia. Presently I work in Kuala Lumpur, teaching English Literature. I was born and raised in and around Shuswap Lake in south-central British Columbia, but I have also lived in northern Alberta. I went to school at Grande Prairie Regional College, then I moved to Edmonton Alberta, and attended the University of Alberta. From there I moved to Bangkok, Thailand and furthered my studies with Michigan State University. I am married to a wonderful woman, Kaeo (who is on the cover of Bangkok—Just Under the Skin). I have three sons, Kritsana, Heathcliff-Manx, and Keats J. We keep a small farm in Thailand where we raise organic fruit and produce, and ducks...a great number of ducks.When not reading, writing, or teaching, I spend time with my family, my friends, my ducks, and my trees. Trees provide a certain sanity and calm in a world so often too concerned with the insane rush to destroy itself.

Book preview

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